he covered congress and government for more than 20 years. he is managing this evening's fact checking. been as important or central in this campaign as the economy has been up until recently, there's some material here that we're going to have to research for first time. >> reporter: as soon as the debate begins, kiely starts to type what both candidates say. he comes across figures or comments that need checking. next, he e-mails colleagues, telling them what to research. then they check the accuracy of the comments. they use official sources like those of the congressional research for candidates' past remarks. and when kiely thinks it's necessary to release the results, the group sends out tweets. the erat indicates romney's statements contradict what he said in the past. they also verify whether each candidate calls his contestant's remarks accurately. >> we are here to be an advocate for voters. and if they have any -- if they are confused or have questions, hopefully we'll be able to answer them for them. so that's why it's important,